Sports of The Times; Set Sails Can't Control The Wind

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: August 19, 1995

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.—
THE pre-draft scouting reports kept coming back to Tyrone Wheatley's stubborn streak. After praising his size, speed and competitive spirit, the reports and the psychological profiles would always return to the Michigan running back's unshakable resolve.

He played eight positions on his high school football team. He ran track, too, but quit that team when his coach refused to let him run four individual events and told him to quit if he didn't like it. The coach relented, and Wheatley led the school to its first state championship.

As a senior in high school, Wheatley contemplated turning down college athletic scholarships. "I wanted an academic scholarship," he said. "I was just being obstinate."

At the University of Michigan, he argued with a professor over the method of grading an essay paper. "It was pretty bitter," he said. "I asked him how he could grade me on my subjective views. You can't." The feud lasted all term, Wheatley did not drop the class and he received a passing grade.

When Wheatley was drafted in the first round by the Giants this past spring, he held out 17 days beyond when he should have been in camp before finally signing a five-year, $5.2 million contract. "He's strongheaded," said George Young, the Giants' vice president and general manager. "It's part of his temperament, but that's good."

Giants fans and Jets players will get their first good look at how good tonight at Giants Stadium. After Wheatley reported late to training camp, he pulled a muscle during his first workout. But after two solid weeks of practice, the 23-year-old rookie is ready to perform. He refuses, however, to set performance standards.

"I don't set goals or objectives," Wheatley said after a recent practice. "People think that's weird, but my grandmother always told me, 'You can set your sails, but you can't set the wind.' I just want to be ready to play."

Wheatley's recalcitrance is actually a survival tool left over from growing up in Inkster, Mich., where urban warfare earned the city the nickname Baby Saigon.

Wheatley's stepfather died when he was 13, leaving him and a sister. "I moved out to lessen the pressure on my mother and moved in with my aunt," Wheatley said. His mother was laid off and began drinking, which began a succession of Alcoholics Anonymous sessions and visits to the detoxification center. Watching his mother fight the illness tore Wheatley apart and left him vulnerable. "That's when I started building my shell," he said. .

"It got to the point where I didn't put my faith in my mother, my sister, nobody; it was all me," he said. "I used to tell my brothers and my sisters that if all things failed, come to me, because I'm never going to fall. That's been my attitude. I'm never going to fall and if I do, all hell is going to break loose."

Wheatley said he gravitated to football, not because he loved the sport, but because the sport filled a need. "The only reason I played football is that I like to be around people," he said. "I didn't like to interact with people, I just liked being around them. Football was a nice way to interact."

Athletically, Wheatley was ready to leave Michigan after his junior year, but felt the need to come out of the shell he had so tightly constructed. He was beginning to suffocate.

"For 17 years, I lived a pretty stressful life," he said. "I didn't have a childhood like most kids did. Growing up I was either living life as a young black male, threat to society, or as a young black male football player. Finally it was young black male football star on the rise.

"By my senior year at Michigan, I got tired of all the roles and I said, 'Forget it, I don't have to please anyone.' "

Wheatley said that he began meeting nonathletes. "I started going new places, expanding," he said. "I just lived my senior year relaxed and happy. It felt good to live life, not as a football player, but as me. Having that senior year outweighed the fortune of having a million dollars. I wouldn't have been able to do that in the N.F.L."

By summer's end, Wheatley may prove to be the most compelling rookie runner in the league, although the Giants say they plan to bring him around slowly. Fast, slow, Wheatley doesn't care. Things are going to work out.

"I used to feel like no one was going to care about me, so I had to do it," he said. "That's the way I lived my life: always on the edge, straight up straight down. Now I'm the biggest optimist on earth."